Post Surgery Diet⟫ Liquids
Last night, I had another ‘normal’ trip to the bathroom – I was thinking that I needed to take a stool softener just to be sure but felt pretty positive. Settled down to watch a movie and realised I needed to go again – and quickly. What followed – oh my goodness, this was satanic! It was up there with some of my Ozempic blow-outs and I’m still in shock. Obviously there was a lot of stuff going on following the surgery and my body is expelling all of the toxins, but I didn’t manage to fall asleep after that.
I did a lot of thinking about the stuff that was happening yesterday that had me spiralling. Part of me wants to just pretend it didn’t happen, or that I was just having an emotional day. But then I wouldn’t really be facing my feelings and I don’t want to keep going through the same thing over and over again because I refuse to face it. This is going to be long and I fully understand that a lot of people will have no interest in it – if so, no hard feelings!
I moved back to my home-town following my second divorce, at the urging of my mother and my sisters. They said they would support me, help me get back onto my feet, get the weight off and have a better quality of life. That wasn’t really what happened though. Ever since I moved away to go to university, it has pretty much always been me travelling the 200 km to visit them; staying in hotels or taking over spare bedrooms with my kids – it was just how things were, and since I loved driving, I kinda just accepted it. However, with the decline in my health – the stroke, the heart attack – as well as the issues during Book_grim’s childhood, I was hoping for more.
It was difficult for them to understand my mental health struggles – it wasn’t really something that was discussed particularly openly – and although it wasn’t quite ‘just get a grip and get on with it’, that was part of the feeling I got whenever I felt overwhelmed or needed support. Stripes ended up taking on the role of second-parent in most of the situations to do with Book_grim, and I resented the lack of help or support they offered to her. It was fine if they wouldn’t help me, but I hated how uncaring they seemed to be about her.
When I had my stroke, we were pet-sitting my mother’s dog and I was meant to be picking my mother up from the airport. Instead, my sister had to take over the remainder of the week dog-sitting and picking up my mother. My mother was pissed. None of them visited me. None of them called Stripes to see how she was coping. No offers of food, a shoulder to cry on – nothing. Same with my heart attack. There was the sense that if I would lose the weight, everything would just get better. Regardless of the fact that I was unemployed, dealing with a child with behavioural issues, an ex-husband that didn’t contribute financially, mobility issues on top of the weight – it was very much the eat less, move more. They knew it wasn’t that simple – if it was, they wouldn’t have followed a huge chunk of the diets that they and I have been on over the years.
I felt like a disappointment because not only was I unemployed, I no longer owned my own home, lived in a council property, was super morbidly obese and rapidly becoming completely disabled. My disabilities were again dismissed as ‘if I just lost some weight’ although how exactly that would have helped with vertigo, migraines, depression and anxiety I never did figure out.
They were always there when money was tight, but I hated asking because it felt like I was just reinforcing the view that I was a screw-up. It was easier to borrow money from them than ask for a hug, or just cry in front of them. Me and the girls ended up struggling through alone and I stopped talking about my problems because what was the point. They knew that I had enquired about weight loss surgery, but didn’t quite understand the hoops I had to jump through to make it happen, or how long it would take (around three years in all).
Any visits were undertaken by us – not sure why this continued to be the norm. I was the one who could least afford the petrol, the car upkeep, and yet I don’t think they visited the first council flat I got in all of the years we lived there after we initially moved in. We have been living where we are now for nearly six years, and they have probably visited three times. Putting up boundaries was difficult because the things they said or implied, the way they treated me, very much matched the inner voice that told me I was a fuck-up, so why would I argue with them about it? I remember one time I stood my ground – we were meant to be planning a big family trip and we went to my sister’s house. I was tired, in pain and just wanted to get the organising out of the way, but everyone was having too much fun for serious conversation. I explained how I was feeling and that if they didn’t want to get to the organising bit, I’d just go home. They continued messing about so I left. It was never really brought up again, apart from me ‘getting over my little tantrum’.
Nearly every time I visited my mother over the last few months, she will put on ‘1000 lbs sisters’ or things of that ilk. I think she has always found obese people to be disgusting and watched almost out of a sense of horror. The most praise I ever received from my mother was when I was following a liquid diet and lost nearly 100 lbs. Her most cherished memory is me picking her up from the train station and not recognising me because I had lost so much weight. I know this because I have been told it many, many times. When Stripes was diagnosed with an eating disorder, I tried to protect her in ways that I never tried to protect myself. I asked them not to push food on her, make comments on her size (or lack of), just try to be more sensitive. Every invitation we received from them was to meet for lunch or dinner. Forget the fact that financially we couldn’t afford to eat out the way that they could, it felt really insensitive to keep making everything about food. Also odd to on the one hand nag someone to do something about their weight and on the other hand to be shoving chocolates, biscuits, high calories foods, etc in their face every time they visited.
When I asked if we could do something other than eat, there was a chorus of absolutely. What it actually meant was that we stopped being invited anywhere. Anytime we visit them, comments are made along the lines of ‘well I know there’s no point offering you anything to eat’ or ‘there’s food there if you want it’ to me. So, yeah, not great.
When I began using Ozempic, they still didn’t understand. That was something celebrities used, not normal people. Why couldn’t I do it the ‘normal’ way – again, eat less, move more. They struggled to understand that if the government was prepared to agree that I was disabled enough to qualify for financial assistance, that maybe I wasn’t just being lazy and that I actually do struggle with physical and mental disabilities. I know they thought Ozempic was going to be a flash in the pan. I sometimes mentioned how I was doing, but since I only really spoke to them over WhatsApp or telephone, it wasn’t in their faces.
When I got the surgery date, it all became very real. As I say, visiting meant watching My 600 lb Life and programmes like that. Constant comments about people ‘like that’ as if she weren’t making it clear that she thought of me the same way. I celebrated losing over 100lbs and they barely mentioned it – my friend who I haven’t physically seen in over a decade sent me a gift of £100 to celebrate with. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting them to throw me a party but – well, it might have been nice to get more than a reaction emoji on the WhatsApp message.
Since the surgery, my mother has amped up her comments – constantly going on about me ‘not cheating’ or acting stupid like those women on the TV. Most of the time, I ignore it but since Sunday, I’ve been slowly feeling some type of way. I mentioned that I was thinking about getting a car and Vee was discussing making sure it was clean air compliant to make sure that it didn’t end up costing me unnecessarily. Mother said “Concentrate on getting better, your car will come later when you are not restricted”. Not restricted, like – what does needing a wheelchair to get around mean other than being restricted? Again, the idea seems to be that losing the weight will mean that suddenly I won’t be disabled and will suddenly regain some value? Whatever.
Was chatting with Vee about various cars, motability, leasing. Mother says ‘I see you’re still going on about your car. Good that you won’t be seeing anyone until January next year. They really will be looking for you to lose a good amount of weight – I will keep my fingers crossed that you do.”
I was actually quite gentle in my response, explained that no, there were no weight loss goals for the first meeting in January and that came directly from my dietetic nurse. I also explained that the January next year is literally a few weeks away whilst she made it sound like months!
Her reply? Of course it’s weeks but you could lose about two stone – that’s only twenty eight pounds.
My medical team are not putting goals on me, are pleased with my progress, but she’s already decided that I need to be pushing harder. So I replied that I wasn’t sure what that had to do with me looking for a car and that, yes, I know I could potentially lose by then but that I’m just going to follow the rules that they have given me to follow and do what they say. The weight will come off, the same as it did with the Ozempic and that I certainly didn’t go through all of this not to do what they say. I got a snippy response about my point being taken but that she doesn’t want me to behave like those sisters on Discovery+. I did lose my cool a little here and said something along the lines of ‘I got that from the umpteen times you’ve told me’, emphasised that this is a marathon not a sprint, and that I am taking this seriously. I also expressed that the car is a bid for more independence as well as hopefully saving money on Ubers and that I wasn’t leaping into anything. She hasn’t responded to me since then.
I started spiralling from there – it brought back so much resentment that I have obviously been suppressing for quite some time. I spoke to Jay about it and she said it seemed like my mother was acting weird as she would have expected her to be my biggest cheerleader.
One of my first thoughts when she said that was remembering my nephew telling me over a chat on Instagram that he had spoken to my mother about visiting me the next time he was in town but she told him I didn’t like visitors. Like, what? And then I made the mistake of writing down this: ”I don't know if me doing this - especially since it was Ozempic, not something she knows anything about, maybe she feels insecure in her place? Like I've been super morbidly obese for nearly 20 years at this point - what if she wants/needs to keep me in my box? I feel so fucking horrid saying that” because I found my brain just went into overload. Looking back, a lot of it has to do with not sleeping – obviously on top of the surgery, my feelings are very close to the surface. But like – maybe I’m not that far off? Like, the status quo is changing. I might not be able to get a job (currently), but losing the weight will make a huge change in my health. And getting a car enables me to do more because I won’t have to worry about the cost of Ubers, etc.
So do they just want me to stay in my box so that they don’t need to look at their own lives? Am I being arrogant in thinking that me doing this is making them reassess where they are? That maybe I’m not a complete failure or waste of space, and that I hold value just by being myself. That I don’t need to make myself small to fit into whatever space they want to cramp me into.
Of course, all of this could be avoided if I just broke all contact but at this point in time, I don’t see that happening. As it is, I only speak to her once a week; visiting no longer happens; and she only really knows the stuff about my life that I share. So an information diet unless specifically asked means that (hopefully) I can take the time to figure out my feelings, grow a shiny new spine and start living the way that I want to live. Stop trying to convince them that I’m not swinging the lead about being disabled, that I’m not just a fat, lazy waste of space and just consider that their thoughts about me are none of my business. All I can do is try my best – if that’s not good enough for them, that’s for them to deal with.
I wish I hadn’t had my meltdown yesterday but I feel so much better for getting all of this out of my head. It certainly doesn’t mean anything is fixed but it does mean it’s not festering inside me, feeding the negative thoughts I get, causing me anxiety. I can put this away (for now) and move on with meeting my protein goals and getting along with the plan agreed with my medical team. I don’t need armchair physicians who have no idea what they’re talking about.
I’m not being a dick. Jay told me that. Sare told me that. I am merely protecting my peace. If me talking about getting a car is triggering for her, then I shall just stop talking about it. If she doesn’t think I’m working hard enough on my weight loss goals after losing over 100 lbs in a year, that’s not my problem. Having poured all of that out, it feels like something I’d read on AITA on Reddit!
Today is my writing day and this is going to have to count as my writing because it’s about 3000 words long! I’ve made some banners and set up a book review as well. I think I’m going to snuggle down with my book and enjoy a peaceful day waiting for my support pillow to turn up!
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